


Canvas

by elektra121



Category: Nibelungenlied
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, F/F, Implied Siegfried/Brünhild, Implied Siegfried/Kriemhild, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 03:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11153046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elektra121/pseuds/elektra121
Summary: There's more to Kriemhild than her beauty, as Brünhild is about to find out.





	Canvas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Halja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halja/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Leinwand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/681408) by [elektra121](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elektra121/pseuds/elektra121). 



> This is a Nibelungen piece that deals with Brünhild's and Kriemhild's ideas of each other. I drew inspiration from some lines of the Middle High German text, especially the one where Kriemhild wishes to be a knight, to be taken seriously - and the one where she admits Siegfried has beaten her, as a punishment. Also, the curious fact that the word "gewaltenære" in Middle High German can both mean "choir of angels" and "rapist" - the word, literally, means: "something/someone that overbears you" - it doesn't distinct between overbearing joy and beauty or overbearing horror.   
> The German title "Leinwand" can have several meanings. The canvas of an artist, a (cinema) screen for projection, linen fabric. All of them apply.

How fiercely I hate you.  


I hate you, hate you, hate everything about you.  
I hate the way you sit, so straight and decent and well-bred; I hate the way you smile, so sweet and kind and stupid; I hate your embroidery, so delicate and pretty - I hate the way you're doing such despicable women's work without any sign of revolting, without any yearning for war and fight and freedom.  
I hate your face that is so smooth, so perfect, so heartbreakingly beautiful that no one can be cross with you; I hate your shiny hair, so neatly braided and pinned up and covered by a fine veil, not even a single hair of yours that would dare to free itself from its restraints.  
I hate your white hands and slender fingers and the whole of your doubtlessly flawless body that is hidden beneath your costly dresses made from silk and velvet.  
I hate you, hate you - HATE you.  
I hate how it is you whom he desires and that it is your tights he lies between at night; you, being my opposite in every regard: cowardly, stupid.  
Weak.

Sometimes I have a hard time containing myself from ripping that pretty veil off your head, pulling your fine long hair, slapping your rosy cheeks and ripping apart those bigoted dresses. How I hate you.

***

How fervently I adore you.  


I adore you, adore you, adore everything about you.  
I adore your bearing, the way you sit and stand, so proud and self-assured; I adore your smile, so icy and cutting and sharp; I adore the way you have with swords and shields, more skilful than most knights; and that your are brave enough to speak freely in front of everyone.

I adore your face, so real, so golden from sun and wind that were allowed to caress it; I adore your hair, so wonderfully unruly, as much rebelling against all pins and needles as yourself. I adore your callous hands and firm fingers, their hard skin telling tales of adventure and danger and fighting; your whole body, sinewy and lithe and strong, that must fit so gloriously into shining armour, yet you're allowed only dresses, now.  
I adore you, adore you so much.  
If I could have but a tiny bit of you, be a little more like you: confident and brave.  
Strong.

Sometimes I want to touch your hair and smell the wind of Iceland in it, caress your cheeks that glow so warm with your blood, and dress you in a byrnie, to see you as you truly are. How I adore you.

***

And today, today it becomes too much. I don't know if you can feel how much I despise you, if you dare me deliberately, smiling so sweetly and looking at me like a pretty little lamb; but this time, it becomes too much.  
You have come to sit with me again, with an oh-so-polite greeting in your beautiful low voice, and I don't descend to answer, because it would be a lie anyway - and why even bother wasting words on someone like you?  
You pick up a shirt from your basket, a white shirt, of course, the linen bleached as white as you are. You thread a needle with some fine and precious silk thread, as fine and precious as you are, and then you begin your stitching. Of course, for there is nothing else for you to do, needles being your only weapons.  
You're humming a low melody and suddenly I want to beat your lips bloody. But why bother wasting the effort on someone like you? I sit and listen to your stupid, pretty voice and then I hear the clash of armor from outside - a singing one thousand times more beautiful, making my heart ache in yearning. It's the men, the knights that are allowed to practice their skills, every day, and I don't even dare to stand up and turn my head to watch them any longer, because then I surely must shatter with longing. 

Instead I watch you doing your stupid needlework and the figure that slowly begins to form under your hands. And surely, this is too much. This time, it's too much. How dare you...?

You're stitching his cypher, it is his shirt in your slender hands, the shirt who has lain on his breast and will again, only then marked by you. You're emboridering the despicable round Roman sign instead of the edged rune that meant his and my victory, a thousand years ago - a symbol that he is yours now, yours, who is as well-formed and fine and courtly as the Latin letter.  
That's enough.  
I seize your wrist, sudden and hard, so that you drop your needle, and pull the shirt from off your lap. My grip is strong, violent even, and my heart leaps in joyful satisfaction. This shall be your punishment for the offence of stitching such things before my eyes. Back in Iceland, I knew how to discipline maidservants that didn't knew their place. And manservants, too. I know my strength very well.  
And so I know it must hurt you, hurt you much, just a little more and your fine bones would crack - this much strength I have left even now, that I could effortlessly break all your delicate limbs, overbend the little bones in your fingers, one after another, until they crack - I love the sound of it and the fidgeting and the high-voiced cries that come after. Oh, I'm curious for the beauty of your cries, your wailing, your whining that shall comfort me. 

Still, for the moment, you're not crying yet, there's no fidgeting, no tears glittering in your eyes. I fasten my grip, just that tiny bit more, I have to be careful, there is not much play left, and finally I see a motion in your fine face. Only a small frown, as if you'd have to think about some problem, and then a sigh escapes your lips. The sound is deep and sweet to my ears, yet it is different to every sigh of pain I ever heard. 

Puzzled, I loosen my grip and then you are smiling at me, completely calm and dauntless, and with your little soft voice you say: "You are so much alike."

You touch my hand gracefully with yours and as by magic, I open it and set you free. As if to answer my unspoken question, you draw back your braided sleeve, just a little, and let me see. 

"He does that too, you know?" And there, beneath the velvet, something is shimmering, a mystery, blueish, black, purple. I pull back the tight sleeve as much as possible.  
There are bruises marring your white skin and suddenly, my heart is in my mouth.  
His hand was there, so near where mine has been just now, his fingers did touch you where I did, just as fiercely as mine. 

And then I have to know it. I rip at your neckline, my inpatient fingers tugging at the lace fastenings at your back - and you let it happen, calm and smiling, as I pull the costly dress from off your shoulders and then your finely-woven linen shirt, to see the canvas of your white skin beneath them. 

It is colored with black and blue and red, purple and green and yellow, bruises and lines of all hues marking it; your whole body beneath your clothes is covered with his victory marks. I turn up your skirts and here, too, he has been, everywhere, and I can't hold back, I have to touch those bruises, press my fingers into them until it must hurt you, like it hurt when he did it; I have to dig myself into your body, taste your skin, bite your flesh, to be near him. 

And you, you do nothing, you let it all happen, only sighing, like a lover, heartbreakingly beautiful and weak like everything about you. 

Finally, it crushes me down, this weakness, and I cry, in desperation, I cry into your lap - the most bitter of all defeats. I cry for me and my lost strength, and for you and your weakness that I hate so much, because it will become mine, already has become mine. 

***

You're so much alike. Strong. So strong that you have to get rid of that strength onto the weak.  
Give me of your strength. I shall preserve it, nurture it, deep within me, and then, one day, show it. I love your strength because I'm not allowed to have it. And yet I feel it shall become mine, one day, already is strengthening me, even if it costs pain. But that's what the weak do: suffer what the strong do - and in this, I have had much practice.  
I feel your tears soaking through the fabric of my skirt, wetting my thighs, the salt burning on the scratches - as if they are penetrating my skin where you have opened it, to mingle with my blood, and make me strong.  
Strong enough that I finally dare to caress your wonderful hair. I hope you believe it is meant as comforting you. 

"If I was a knight..."  
If I was a knight, I would have set forth for Iceland, a long time ago, just when I first heard of you, all by myself.  
And then I had either made you my wife or suffered death by your hands. Because the strong are free to do anything:  
to love and die as they choose. 

 

End.


End file.
